awww yeah
I have Aqua: The megamix on empee3 \:D/
I've learned "Bully!" and "By Jingo!" from reading Turtledove's Breakthrough (The Great War series). I'm going to try and incorporate these terms into my vocabulary @-)
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I have Aqua: The megamix on empee3 \:D/
I've learned "Bully!" and "By Jingo!" from reading Turtledove's Breakthrough (The Great War series). I'm going to try and incorporate these terms into my vocabulary @-)
I upgraded my Hearts of Iron game to the latest 1.03 patch so I've been playing another game. I love this grand strategic type of game, it's just a blast. It reminds me a lot of American Civil War: Sumter to Appomatix; which was a grand strategic game of the Civil War. That game never worked very well, but the few games that I got to finish were loads of fun...especially when I managed to win as the Confederacy without cheating. ACW was a broken game, lots of the features would work for only so long, and that's really sad, because it could have been an amazing game. Even broken I managed to have a lot of fun with it. I'm glad that Paradox has made an effort to fix the things that were broken with HoI, though I think they had less choice about it, since the game was horrendous out of the box.
I got to borrow a copy the DVD "We Were Soldiers". I was riveted to the sofa for the whole course of the movie, I don't know what it was, but the film struck me in a profound way
perhaps it was just a well made movie. Mel Gibson was great, but then he always does a good job of playing extreme emotion and tense situations. I was surprised by Sam Elliot, especially since I've only ever really seen him in the "Big Lebowski", but I thought he did a great job as the crotchety old Sgt. Major. I especially liked that they showed the Vietnamese side of things, the bespectacled solider and his wife/girl friend really showed that the hordes of Vietnamese soldiers did in fact have families that mourned their deaths
just like ours.
War movies tend to impact me, whether or not their as good as this one or on the same level as "Saving Private Ryan". War is one of those things that have always captured my imagination, I like the tactics and strategy involved, but the real heart of it is getting inside the mind of those involved. For war to make sense you really have to suspend your normal thought processes and it's fascinating to see the mental acrobatics that people go through in combat situations. The trauma of emotion that is unleashed by combat is astounding and I really enjoy it when a film can portray that to the point of impacting the audience.
My lovely wife and I went to the new American Airlines Arena to see our Dallas Stars take on the Calgary Flames. The tickets were a Christmas present from my father-in-law and while I enjoyed the game I had mixed emotions while being there. The new arena is impressive in a lot of ways, all the whiz-bang extras are nice I guess and I certainly don't miss the heavily crowded concourse, but despite that I think I liked Reunion better.
I had season tickets for the final two seasons at Reunion and my initial thoughts were that the new place seems too spread out, too big. Not once during the game was there any chanting, no goalie taunting or Go Stars Go, nothing. I liked some of the "special effects", though it seemed that the primary purpose for most of the new screens, including the one that goes all the way around, was to add more space for advertising. I don't begrudge advertisers anything, but it doesn't matter how many Dodge emblems emblazoned on multiple LCD screens I see at one time, it isn't going to persuade me to buy a Dodge and it doesn't add anything to the game experience. There wasn't a puck race, or a chicken dance, instead we had the Starstruck bacehlorette contest and while the more wholesome, non slutty girly won
well
it was still painful to watch. I'm sorry, but I don't want "reality" TV mixed with my hockey
*cringe* *twitch* *shudder*.
We were in the "Priority Terrace" on the last row at center ice and I thought the view of the rink was still good. There was the same problem with "leaners", the people who seem to forget that the seat has a back rest and spend the whole game leaned forward as much as possible, therefore making it necessary for everyone behind them to lean forward as much as possible or spend the game looking at their bald spot...these are loathsome creatures. The seats seemed to have less space than Reunion did, but I guess they had to make up for all the space wasted in the "corporate" terrace section (the not quite luxury boxes).
Overall the spirit of the game seemed less than I remember from Reunion, less rowdy, more chintzy and polished. It reeked to me of big corporate money and stylish plastic people posing in the "place to be". It was less about the hockey and while the new facility is great, and the franchise can make a profit, the soul seems to have been sucked out of the experience
at least to me.
Of course maybe I'm just jealous that I don't have season tickets anymore ;)
Just finished: Otherland: City of Golden Shadow by Tad Williams
Currently reading: The Great War: Breakthroughs by Harry Turtledove (~90% done)
Next book: Otherland: River of Blue Fire by Tad Williams
Looking forward to: American Empire series by Turtledove & rest of Otherland series
Contemplating rereading: Ice & Fire series by GRR Martin; LotR series
I remember a scene from Desert Storm where some capture/surrendered Iraqi soldiers were chanting "Bush, Bush, Bush...". It was billed as the Iraqi soldiers showing support for the American president and war effort...I always just thought it meant they were really horny...I mean they had been out in the desert a long time.
I like Bush's speech last night, I'm impressed with myself for actually watching all of it...I feel all civic and stuff. I thought everything sounded great, now I just want to see if it happens, talk is cheap...you know the rest. I had a thought concerning our war on terrorism. I've heard comments here and there indicating that nothing is happening, that the US is in a sense not making any progress. Well we haven't been attacked again have we? I suppose it is possible that the terrorist are biding their time, but I also get the feeling that they would have wanted to follow up their September 11 attack with more...if for no other reason than to SHOW us that our security measures aren't working. So maybe we are making progress.
Either which-a-way, I like Bush's speech, it was positive, motivational and seemed genuine, but like I said, when I see results I'll be more impressed.
The roleplaying has ground to a halt over the last few months, we've gotten together to play a few board games and that has been fun. I think Tigris and Euphrates has been the favorite, but La Cita is up for consideration...one day we'll get gumption up enough to play advanced Civilization...which I anticipate, being such a fan of the computer game that was inspired by it. In the lull and as we get that itch to role play again we're going to try a new game with a new GM. One of our newest members is going to run a Blue Planet game which looks promising.
The Fallout campaign pretty much fell apart and I haven't heard from the GM on that one at all for over a month and a half now. That means that I stopped developing my Wyoming enviornment, which all in all wasn't a huge waste since I didn't really have much done yet. Our regular GM for the Rolemaster campaign got a new system/game called Fvlminata (v is u)...an alternate history of Rome where the Empire never fell and the Romans developed gunpowder and guns. He hadn't read much of it and when I asked about it the last time he let me borrow the book, so I've started reading it and trying to learn the new system. I'm fairly determined this time to push through to completion and hopefully I'll get an attempt to run an adventure some day...but we'll have to wait and see about that.
I remember back when I was in technical school...it was a college, but not really...and was being introduced to the world of PC gaming on a scale previously unknown. A few of my friends and I would go to Sears on the mall to play games on the display computers. We had lowly, antiquated machines at home and these were searing, gut busting 386 & 486 machines...it was nirvana. Some of the sales people got annoyed with us, but for the most part they didn't seem to care, and a few appreciated the fact that we installed our games
it was a sort of informal swap.
One day I had gone by myself and had meandered up to the computer department, as I was in the habit of doing, and I began searching through the directories old school style...cd, backslash, etc, etc. My general strategy was to snoop through the hard drive and look for oddly named directories that might indicate a game was installed. I can still plainly recall coming across a directory called MPS, so in I went to discover the sole subdirectory named C-I-V. Not knowing what I might find I continued on into c:\mps\civ. I found the executable, named civ.exe and typed it. Countless hours of my life were forever destroyed in that instance. I had found Sid Meir's Civilization. I spent two or three hour's straight standing in front of that computer playing this game without any clue as to what I was doing.
I had one city and all I could figure out to do was make militia men and research technology, but despite that I was enthralled. Just about the time I had to leave I finally figured out how to change the building queue and the whole game was unleashed. I ended up coming back and copying the game onto two floppies and then sometime later going to Best Buy to actually buy the game so I could get the manual. (Up until that point I had to guess at the security key, sometimes I got it, sometimes I didn't). There really is no telling how many hours of my life I wasted on that game, not to mention the other unfortunate souls who I introduced to it. I know at one point I spent, literally, an entire weekend playing...straight through...I went to the bathroom and slept, that was it. Crazy, I know...but man those were the days.
My wife found a lottery ticket yesterday. I thought it would be horribly ironic and not just a little cruel if it ended up having a winning combination. We've never bought lottery tickets; actually I've never bought a single ticket, scratch off or otherwise; though I have received them as gifts at Christmas from my Aunt.
I've been watching the appendices of my LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring Ultra Special Miraculous Extended Deluxe DVD set and I've been pleasantly surprised. They have been a pleasure to watch, almost as much fun as the movie itself. It's nice to see the character of the people involved and brings to the forefront a lot of amazing people and talents that you don't get to see if you just watch the movie. I love movies, but I don't typically pay much attention to the actors outside of the movie, so I rarely know their names...so it has been nice to see how cool these people are in FotR, they all seem genuine neat people, the kind of folks you wouldn't mind hanging out with having a pint.
My lovely wife and I had Chinese food at lunch today. My fortune is:
Make safety a habit.
I wonder if they know something I don't.
My best friend Dyanna's grandmother passed away this weekend and when she called me to cry on my shoulder I wasn't there. I didn't get the message till late at nite and I didn't call her back...I'm really really sorry about that, but I want you to know that you were on my mind, in my thoughts and prayers constantly throught this ordeal. >:-(< (sad hug)
Okay, this thing with the cop killing the family dog in Tennessee is now irking me off. They played a response from the policemen who had shot the dog on GMA this morning. The man seemed remorseful and his accounts of the event seemed plausible, he was obviously trying hard, but this didn't seem to console the family at all. I don't begrudge them being pissed off about it, I would be pissed too...but for goodness sake they got an apology from the Governor of the state and the mayor of the town...what else do they or any of the rest of us expect them to get? Evidently they want the policeman reprimanded, but I ask what form of punishment would they have him endure?
I didn't get to listen to the entire story intently, but I heard the word death threat and I assume this is in reference to the policeman. The bottom line is the guy was probably scared out of his wits, the police did think that they were pulling over thieves, it was dark and there were several people in the car. I might be way off base, but I believe these cops were from a fairly small town and it isn't hard for me to imagine that they were all pumping adrenaline like no one's business. Then imagine, in a flash a dog jumps out of the car and heads toward you. What do you think? Somehow I don't think most of us under these circumstances would be checking to see if the dog was wagging his tail in a friendly manner or if the bark was a distinctive unfriendly bark.
Did he overreact? Oh yeah! But, my problem with this sad and unfortunate situation, and it is very sad and unfortunate, is that the cop is having his career and life ripped apart, he's potentially received death threats? As I said...the situation is sad and tragic...most of us hate to see a poor animal get mercilessly blown away by a shotgun...but at the end of the day it was a dog...and in my opinion the loss of a dog does not warrant the destruction of a man's character, life and career.
I was just struck by a thought, hence the lighning reference, after reading about my beloved Stars aquiring Claude Lemieux. I like professional sports, but I sometimes have trouble getting past the twinge in my mind that it all seems tainted. The players just don't have a real signifigance anymore, only a few players will ever spend their entire career with one organization...even some guys like Lemieux who are really good will play with several teams and win several championships. I guess that's what bothers me, the players are just interchangable parts and winning a championship has more to do with a positive cash flow than the achievement of winning. The essence of "team" just doesn't seem important anymore...maybe I should watch the Star's profit margin to determine a good season or not.
This is an old argument though and I understand why it is the way it is, but that doesn't mean I can't complain about it sometimes.
What she did to me is what I did to you...
A long time ago I downloaded a warez game and in one of the packed files was an mp3 called TK4.mp3.
The chorus is the Subject title...pretty cool little techno song...very catchy, but I've never found out anything about it. Anyway, just thought I'd share.
We got to see LOTR: The Two Towers over the Christmas break and I absolutely loved it. They really did do an amazing job of putting the books into movie format and outside of making each move eight hours long I don't see how they could have done any better (well I did have some suggestions...hehe). My lovely wife got the special delux extra enhanced collectors DVD for Christmas and this is greatness. All the expanded and deleted scenes are woven back into the movie and in my opinion it makes the story a lot more solid and the really helps the character depth. It also came with a National Geographic special on the books, which was fairly interesting and two bookends modled after the two massive statues of the ancient Kings (can't remember the name)...very groovy.
I'm currently reading Otherworld by Tad Williams; this is a pretty cool book, well written and while completely confusing at times it is so well done that it has kept my attention. I'm almost done with it which leaves in somewhat of a quandry, either to go on to the next in the series or jump over the last book in Turtledove's alternate-history of WWI....and since I have gift certificates to B&N and Half Priced Books getting the books is not problem...hoowah!
One of the perks working for a State school is that I get almost two weeks off for Christmas and New Years. I took two days of vacation in order to make it the full two weeks and we spent one week with the in-laws and one week with my parents traveling to the Grand Canyon and back. While at times these holiday interactions with family have been stressful and unpleasant in the past this time around it was very pleasant. Even the travel with my parents, which at times got tedious due to nothing more than being in such close proximity for so long, was relaxing and refreshing. Now I find that I miss those two weeks a lot and I realize how much fun it was. It's a little hard to come back to Dallas while everyone else is in Waco and Austin. I somehow feel alone and seperated, perhaps thats what I've been feeling for awhile and didn't understand it until I had experienced being back amongst family and friends.
It really is a shame, we don't have any friends or family (except my wife's Grandmother) that live close by us. Even the friends that I've made in Dallas all live in the far flung suburbs and getting together with them is typically difficult and at the very least demands someone driving through the traffic...which I don't like and don't want to subject others to either. Even at church everyone is older than us and we haven't really made and serious friendships there, while we do have friends...no one is a "good" friend, like the kind you'd have over and stuff.
Maybe we need to be more proactive, I know that's something I've constantly struggled with. I'm a self-professed lazy person, I always have been ever since I can remember. I don't know why either...both my parents are hard working people...but I guess that's it...I work hard, but I'm not very proactive and neither are they, at least that I recall...not that I'm going to blame my parents for anything. But I guess I've gotten off my initial train of thought.